http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/22/fcc-to-drop-fairness-doctrine

Yes, but how many owners? How many overseers?

I posted a link to FOX for the value of the irony. "Fair and Balanced" was only appreciated with a sense of irony. The Fairness Doctrine had to be skirted for FOX, Rush and the like to have ever existed as they have been.

Other changes in FCC policy should also be common knowledge and if you don't know about them and think you are informed, also ironic.

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=fairnessdoct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

Except that, Fox News being a cable entity is not nor has it ever been subject to the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC or its mandate which covers the broadcast spectrum. But thanks for being the self-declared "informed" among us and for the subsequent misinformation,which is indeed exquisitely ironic!

It's very simple. The mainstream media is HUGELY to the left. They can't stand the success of some of the conservative commentators both TV and radio. The only tool they have left, given their own failure in things such as talk radio, MSNBC and the like is to shut down the conservatives is to shut them up with the Fairness Doctrine.

This is what happens when ones arguments no longer stand on their own merit, one begins name calling and doing things like trying to shut down the opposing view with the Fairness Doctrine.

This is much the same as the situation with the name calling by people like Maxine Waters and Jimmy Hoffa Jr. Their arguments are slipping and failing so the only thing left for them to do is resort to name calling.

Larry

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I was under the the impression that the Fairness Doctrine did not apply to any cable network or program as they do not use the public air waves?

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If by 'left' we mean some variation on Communist, State Socialist, Libertarian Socialist or Anarchist, can you point to any commentators or columnists in the mainstream media that are one of those things or any newspaper or magazine or TV network. I can't. Mother Jones, or the Nation might fit close to some of those but they aren't mainstream. Hence the mainstream media is not hugely left. It only looks left from the far right.
There's no newspaper in the US that remotely resembles this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Humanit%C3%A9

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OR, it looks center if you're on the left wing tip.

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I never said it looked center. I think it is right of center since there are very few non-capitalists in the mainstream media. Mainstream media runs from completely unregulated capitalism on the right end to regulated capitalism on the left end, but this left end is still right of center if capitalism is right of center.
You, on the other hand, stated that it was hugely left. I asked for evidence. Nothing forthcoming so far.

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If a station does not use lies, hatred, or fearmongering now their considered "far left"?

Whoooo-weeee! A lot of good old fashioned right-wing knee jerking going on here. Did any of you folks bother to read the article in the link?

It is nothing more than a historical perspective on the FD and nowhere in it is there anything about bringing it back. The article even makes the point that there is a good chance the FD violates the First Amendment, and that many left-wing broadcasters are totally opposed to it.

Please note that the FD was put into place in 1937. Notice anything special about that date? No? Well......

Did you know that television was being broadcast in Berlin starting in 1935? It was only on five hours a day and very few people had receiving sets, but it did exist. There was news, weather, music programs and lots and lots of Nazi speechmaking. If you had the money to buy a set you did not need to go to a rally to see Hitler making a speech; you could watch it right in your own home. From the Nazi point of view this was a good thing since Hitler's speeches came across better on film than they did in the newspapers.

Since the Nazi's were pouring money into the US to build up goodwill towards Germany in general and the Nazi's overall the US gov had concerns that they would start broadcasting on the Television spectrum here. Since the US did not approve of Mr. Hitler's view on many things they thought it best to find a way to offer a counterpoint. As the FCC was, and still is, in control of US airwaves the job fell to them to enforce a law passed by Congress that came to be known as the Fairness Doctrine.

Everybody in broadcasting hated the FD since it was nothing but a drain on profits. They saw it as being forced to give airtime away; the FCC saw it as doing the will of Congress. If the broadcasters did not like the FD crying to the FCC was not going to help. They had to take their case to Congress, so they finally did.

Reagan made the point then that with cable TV and the Internet on the way to being everywhere the FD served little purpose and it is hard to argue that he was not correct. If someone wanted to set-up a cable network to send out their view of the news and the world there was nothing to stop them but for raising the money.

Go back and read the article. You might learn something.

Edited to contain the relevant point I wish to discuss; not to change the character of the quote. msf

Actually, there was a lot of support for Hitler, right here in the USA before the war. Even during the war, until the full measure of the "Final Solution" began to come to light.
American PROGRESSIVES had a lot of good things to say about the way Herr Hitler turned around Germany, even wistfully observing that he was not limited by a Constitution as we were in this country. He got things done!

After the Holocaust became known, they could no longer support fascism, so the myth was spread abroad that fascism was a defect of the political right, conveniently ignoring Mussolini's claim to have always been a socialist. That particular piece of "disinformation" has been so effectively spread that most people now believe fascism's roots are in the political right.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxKd5lpZwLY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no9fpKVXxCc

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

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Nothing in that UCLA report contradicts what I was arguing. It doesn't measure bias along the complete political spectrum but according to Republican and Democratic voting issues. How many Democratic socialists are voting in Congress? Bernie Sanders is the only socialist I know of. It's only measuring right and left within capitalism.

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1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Okay, how about this example. GWB was excoriated in the press over Enron when there was absolutely no government involvement and the donation to his campaign was the same as that given to Gore's campaign.

Solyndra, on the other hand, has government and individual democrat political fingerprints all over it, wasting ONE HALF BILLION DOLLARS taxpayer money and there's hardly any reporting of this at all in the mainstream media, much less the OUTCRY that it deserevs. If this is not an example of a left leaning press, then I just can't come up with one.

BTW, again, if you're on the left wing tip, then the mainstream media would INDEED look to be right of center as YOU observe. So, you are correct from YOUR viewpoint.

Larry

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Looking back at that first post I see it was a mistake to mention FOX or Rush. The whole left/right debate was not my intention or my concern with the issue. Sorry, bad joke.

Cable is carried on public right of way which is also part of the "public trust" and the issue of airways was splitting hairs and only relevent after some really expensive lobbying. Best government money can buy.

The "public trust" concept is just as dead as The Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine is a fallen domino in the trend toward the loss of the public trust which is at least one of the cornerstones, or perhaps the foundation, of our democratic system. Some would argue that the democratic system is also lost and all that is left is "Disneyworld Version" of its former self. Alas, it must have been nice while it lasted.

The real point here is that EVERYTHING in the media should be first considered entertainment and secondarily as possibly valid information.

Don't be a news junkie.

We probably would not have gone to war in Europe had Japan not dragged Germany into it. In it's historical context, the nation was strongly united against Japan and highly fractured against Germany. Roosevelt and Churchill downplayed the extermination of Jews because tehre is so much anti-Jewish sentiment that they didn't want the people to believe Hitler's rhetoric that the Jews were dragging us into war. So they kept it focused on the attacks against England, France and the rest of Europe and to a much less degree, the USSR.